Method and apparatus for identifying and contacting customers who are due for a visit but have not scheduled an appointment

ABSTRACT

A management database is queried to determine which customers have failed to respond to recall notices. The resulting list of customers may be sorted or filtered so that some customers are preferentially contacted first, based on expected value or office preferences. The list may also be sorted or filtered to fill specific providers&#39; schedules first. Customer names and contact information are then presented to schedulers so that customers may be contacted. The time and date of each contact is automatically recorded along with the outcome of the contact. A customer name is presented to a scheduler only if the same name is not being simultaneously presented to other schedulers and that customer was not too recently contacted, so that redundant or too frequent contacts are avoided.

The present application is a Continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 11/484,340, filed Jul. 10, 2006, which is hereby incorporatedby reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for scheduling,and more particularly, to methods and apparatus for customer schedulingto recapture lost business by identifying and contacting customers whohave not responded to reminders to schedule an appointment, or who aredue back for an appointment based on accepted standards of care oroffice policies, but who have not yet been scheduled for an appointment.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Many businesses rely on scheduled appointments to provide an agreed timeand place to serve customers. In many cases, after serving a customer, areturn appointment will be recommended for some time in the future.Often, an appointment is made for a return visit before the customerleaves the office. However, if the needed appointment is too far out, orif staff schedules are unreliable, or if a suitable appointment cannotbe found quickly, then the office may instead choose to use a recall. Arecall is a notice, sent to the customer prior to the desiredappointment date, reminding the customer to call to schedule anappointment.

Many management systems that schedule customer appointments providesupport for recall notices. Typically, these systems allow entry of atarget date for the unscheduled appointment, which is associated withthe customer, and some notes about the reason for the recall. On aregular basis, the management system is used to generate printed cards,letters or address labels, so that reminders to call for an appointmentcan be sent to the appropriate customers. Instead of printed reminders,automated calling systems are sometimes used to leave a recorded messagerequesting a return call to schedule an appointment.

There is another class of customers that are due back for a visit at aperiodic interval based on accepted standards of care and officepolicies for a specific condition, but have not been scheduled for anappointment and are not set up in the management system to receive areminder to do so. For example, glaucoma customers may require quarterlyvisits to manage intraocular pressures; diabetic customers may requirean eye exam every six months; and healthy customers may require anannual eye exam. Sometimes, a customer may slip out of the office afterone of these routine visits without a follow-up appointment or a recallbeing made. Other times an appointment is made, and then canceled ormissed, and the customer then forgets to call for a new appointment. Allof these events lead to a situation where a customer requires contact toschedule a needed visit.

Some management systems, particularly electronic medical recordssystems, store rules representing standards for periodic care, based ona customer's condition. However, these systems don't generally providequeries or reports covering the situations described above. Instead,these rules guide schedulers at the time that return appointments aremade.

On the other hand, these systems often do provide a report or querywhich provides a list of customers who have not responded to recallnotices, so that these customers can be contacted or reminded again.Unfortunately, a simple list of unresponsive customers is inadequate forschedulers involved in a shared, sustained effort to contact customersand schedule these appointments. Schedulers require a record of thetimes and dates of messages left so that additional messages are notleft with the same customers until a sufficient time has elapsed as towarrant another contact. Further, schedulers require that as customersare contacted successfully and appointments are scheduled, thesecustomers are deleted from the list so that these customers are notcontacted again after an appointment is made.

These shortcomings make the process of contacting customers who have notresponded to recall notices difficult enough that many offices choosenot to make the effort, resulting in a substantial loss of business andprofits. This invention overcomes these obstacles by automaticallytracking which customers have been or are presently being contacted, sothat multiple schedulers can work from the same list without makingredundant calls to customers.

As of 2005, there were over 800 vendors selling practice managementsoftware, many of which support recalls and provide reports of customerswho have not responded to recall notices. None of these systems providethe features described in this application to facilitate personallycontacting customers to request appointments.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A first principal object of the present invention is to facilitateoutbound calling as a means to schedule appointments with customers whohave not responded to reminders to call for an appointment. This classof customers will hereafter be referred to as “recall due customers.”

A second principal object is to facilitate outbound calling as a meansto schedule appointments with customers who are due for a visitaccording to accepted standards of care or office policies, but who havenot been scheduled for an appointment and are not set up in themanagement system to receive a reminder to do so. This class ofcustomers will hereafter be referred to as “other due customers.”

A third principal object is to enable multiple schedulers toconveniently work from the same list of customers without interferingwith each other as they contact customers.

A fourth principal object is to automatically keep a record of customercontacts so that further contact can be appropriately timed orcontrolled to avoid redundant contacts with customers.

A fifth principal object is to sort the customer list and presentcustomers to schedulers in an order that makes best use of schedulertime, for instance, by calling higher-paying customers beforelower-paying customers.

The invention begins by querying the management system to determine theset of recall due customers and/or other due customers. This combinedset will hereafter be referred to as “due customers.” The resulting duecustomer set, or list, may be sorted or filtered based on the expectedvalue of each appointment in order to maximize the return on outboundcalls, or by provider and/or location in order to focus on fillingspecific schedules. Due customers are then presented to the schedulervia a computer apparatus, hereafter referred to as “contact program,”along with the information necessary to contact the customer. Thescheduler then attempts to contact the customer and schedule anappointment. Contact results, including a timestamp, are recorded in thecontact system database via the contact program. The contact history isthen used to prevent redundant or too frequent contacts.

According to a first aspect, the invention is a method for attempting toschedule an appointment for a customer in an office having one or morepersons tasked with scheduling appointments for the office in an officemanagement system.

The method includes the steps of: a) querying the office managementsystem to determine a first class of customers whose appointments havenot been scheduled despite reminding the customer at least once toschedule the appointment, b) prompting the one or more persons to make afirst personal contact with a customer in the first class of customersby a predetermined means to attempt to schedule the appointment for thecustomer, c) personally contacting the customer to attempt to schedulethe appointment, the personal contact being made by at least one of theone or more persons using the predetermined means, d) noting the resultsof the first personal contact, and e) noting the time of step c).

According to a second aspect, the invention is a method for attemptingto schedule an appointment for a customer in an office having one ormore persons tasked with scheduling appointments for the office in anoffice management system.

The method includes the steps of: a) querying the office managementsystem to determine a first class of customers whose appointments havenot been scheduled despite reminding the customer at least once toschedule the appointment, b) prompting the one or more persons to make afirst personal contact with a customer in the first class of customersby a predetermined means to attempt to schedule the appointment for thecustomer, c) personally contacting the customer to attempt to schedulethe appointment, the personal contact being made by at least one of theone or more persons using the predetermined means, d) noting the resultsof the first personal contact, and e) noting the time of step c).

The method further includes the steps of: f) querying the officemanagement system to determine a second class of customers whoseappointments have not been scheduled despite receiving a first personalcontact at least a predetermined length of time before the present time,g) prompting the one or more persons to personally contact a customer inthe second class of customers by a predetermined means to attempt toschedule the appointment for the customer, h) personally contacting thecustomer to attempt to schedule the appointment, the personal contactbeing made using the predetermined means by at least one of the one ormore persons, i) noting the results of the contact, and j) noting thetime of step h).

According to a third aspect, the invention is a method for attempting toschedule an appointment for a customer in an office having one or morepersons tasked with scheduling appointments for the office in an officemanagement system, the office management system describing each customerand appointment according to one or more attributes which influenceprofitability or office preferences.

The method includes the steps of: a) querying the office managementsystem to determine a first class of customers whose appointments havenot been scheduled despite reminding the customer at least once toschedule the appointment, b) sorting the first class of customersaccording to customer and appointment attributes, so that all customerswhose appointments are more profitable or preferable are presented forcontact before customers with less profitable or preferable attributes,c) prompting the one or more persons to personally contact a customerbelonging to the first class of customers by a predetermined means toattempt to schedule the appointment for the customer, d) personallycontacting the customer to attempt to schedule the appointment, thepersonal contact being made using the predetermined means by at leastone of the one or more persons, e) noting the results of the contact,and f) noting the time of step d).

According to a fourth aspect, the invention is a method for attemptingto schedule an appointment for a customer in an office having one ormore persons tasked with scheduling appointments for the office in anoffice management system.

The method includes the steps of: a) querying the office managementsystem to determine a first class of customers who are due back for avisit according to accepted standards of care or office policies, buthave not been scheduled for an appointment, b) prompting the one or morepersons to make a first personal contact with a customer in the firstclass of customers by a predetermined means to attempt to schedule theappointment for the customer, c) personally contacting the customer toattempt to schedule the appointment, the personal contact being made byat least one of the one or more persons using the predetermined means,d) noting the results of the first personal contact, and e) noting thetime of step d).

According to a fifth aspect, the invention is a method for attempting toschedule an appointment for a customer in an office having one or morepersons tasked with scheduling appointments for the office in an officemanagement system.

The method includes the steps of: a) querying the office managementsystem to determine a first class of customers who are due back for avisit according to accepted standards of care or office policies, buthave not been scheduled for an appointment, b) prompting the one or morepersons to make a first personal contact with a customer in the firstclass of customers by a predetermined means to attempt to schedule theappointment for the customer, c) personally contacting the customer toattempt to schedule the appointment, the personal contact being made byat least one of the one or more persons using the predetermined means,d) noting the results of the first personal contact, and e) noting thetime of step d).

The invention further includes the steps of 0 querying the officemanagement system to determine a second class of customers whoseappointments have not been scheduled despite receiving a first personalcontact at least a predetermined length of time before the present time,g) prompting the one or more persons to personally contact a customer inthe second class of customers by a predetermined means to attempt toschedule the appointment for the customer, h) personally contacting thecustomer to attempt to schedule the appointment, the personal contactbeing made using the predetermined means by at least one of the one ormore persons, i) noting the results of the contact, and j) noting thetime of step h).

According to a sixth aspect, the invention is a method for attempting toschedule an appointment for a customer in an office having one or morepersons tasked with scheduling appointments for the office in an officemanagement system, the office management system describing each customerand appointment according to one or more attributes which influenceprofitability or office preferences.

The invention includes the steps of a) querying the office managementsystem to determine a first class of customers who are due back for avisit according to accepted standards of care or office policies, buthave not been scheduled for an appointment, b) sorting the first classof customers according to customer and appointment attributes, so thatall customers whose appointments are more profitable or preferable arepresented for contact before customers with less profitable orpreferable attributes, c) prompting the one or more persons topersonally contact a customer belonging to the first class of customersby a predetermined means to attempt to schedule the appointment for thecustomer, d) personally contacting the customer to attempt to schedulethe appointment, the personal contact being made using the predeterminedmeans by at least one of the one or more persons, e) noting the resultsof the contact, and 0 noting the time of step d).

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the contact system as it interactswith the existing management system.

FIG. 2 is an exemplary table of total billings per visit by payor class.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary table showing the average billings per visit, bypayor class.

FIG. 4 is an exemplary program, which prompts the scheduler to call thecustomer for an appointment.

FIG. 5 is an exemplary table of contact results and rules for furthercontact.

FIG. 6 is a list of fields in the contact system database'scontactSummary table, which contains the details of each customer to becontacted.

FIG. 7 is a list of fields in the contact system database'scontactDetails table, which contains the details of each attemptedcontact.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

The following detailed description will be made in the context of thebroad steps of a method. It will be understood that the steps of themethod described can be accomplished by means of a conventional computersystem, including a display device.

The broad steps are: querying the office management system to determinewhich customers have not responded to recall notices (“recall duecustomers”), or who are due for a visit according to accepted standardsof care or office policies, but have not scheduled an appointment(“other due customers”); prompting a scheduler to personally contact oneof these customers to attempt to schedule the appointment; personallycontacting the customer to attempt to schedule the appointment;recording the results of the contact in a contact system database; andautomatically recording the time and date of contact into the contactsystem database. Appointments are made using the existing managementsystem's scheduling user interface.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the contact system as it interactswith the existing management system. The contact system 100, whichprograms a conventional computer, consists of a contact program 106 anda contact system database 108. The contact system interfaces with anexisting management system 101, which also programs a conventionalcomputer. The existing management system consists of a scheduling userinterface 102 and a management system database 104. The scheduling userinterface 102 draws customer appointments 103 from the management systemdatabase 104, and writes new appointments 103 into the management systemdatabase 104. The contact program 106 queries customers who are due fora visit but have not scheduled an appointment 105 and prompts one ormore users to contact these customers. The contact results and history107 are stored into the contact system database 108. The contact program106 queries the contact system database 108 to avoid contactingcustomers redundantly or too frequently.

Querying the Office Management System to Determine Which Customers AreDue for a Visit But Have Not Scheduled an Appointment

FIG. 6 is a list of fields in the contact system database'scontactSummary table, which contains the details of each customer to becontacted (“due customer”). FIG. 5 is an exemplary table of contactresults and rules for further contact.

An exemplary procedure for identifying due customers follows:

Once daily:

-   -   1) Query the management system database and contact system        database to see if any due customers have scheduled an        appointment since a message was left in a contact attempt, and        update finalResult in contact system database's contactSummary        table (FIG. 6) to “appointment made after message left” (FIG. 5)        as appropriate.    -   2) Query the management system database for due customers that        are not yet in the contact system database, and add these to the        contact system database's contactSummary table (FIG. 6).

Step 2, query the management system database for due customers, isfurther explained below.

There are two types of due customers: recall due customers and other duecustomers. The following sections explain how to query for each.

Querying the Office Management System for Recall Due Customers

There are many different management systems, each with its own databaseschema, so the exact query will vary from system to system. However,most of these systems are built on standard database products, such asMicrosoft SQL Server (produced by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond,Wash.), which can be queried using standard, documented query language.

A query to the management system database 104 is executed via thecontact program 106 which enumerates all customers who have notresponded to recall notices. The query returns information required tocontact the customer and other information that may be helpful whencontacting the customer, including customer name, customeridentification number, customer phone number, recall notes/reason,doctor name, which office they were last seen at, and the dates theywere last seen, expected back, and last sent a recall notice. Based onuser preferences, this query can be sorted from highest to lowest payingcustomers to maximize the return on outbound call time, or by providerso that specific staff members' schedules will be filled first.

In order to reduce the number of calls to customers who have moved,changed doctors, or passed away, it is best to query only for customerswhose recall dates were within the past year or some other similar timethreshold.

In order to avoid calling customers who have just received recallnotices, the query is further limited to customers who were sent arecall notice no more recently than six weeks ago, or some other similartime threshold.

If scheduling staff have not reliably closed out recall notices asappointments have been made, then the resulting data set returned inresponse to the query will include customers who have responded torecalls. In this case, a simple heuristic, such as whether the customerscheduled an appointment after the recall was entered into the system,will greatly reduce the number of redundant contacts made. However, notall return appointments fulfill the specific purpose for a particularrecall notice. For example, a customer with glaucoma who is set up for arecall to return in six months for a glaucoma check and returns twomonths later for a glasses check would still need to return again forhis glaucoma check. Therefore, filtering based on customers who have notscheduled an appointment since entering the recall notice will causesome number of customers to be dropped from the contact list that shouldhave received calls. However, if the problems caused by callingcustomers who have already responded to recall notices are seriousenough, or if there are many recall prompts in the system which have notbeen closed out properly, then this tradeoff may be appropriate.

Querying the Office Management System for Other Due Customers

The first step is to determine the schedule of care required for eachcondition. For example, glaucoma customers may require quarterly visits;diabetic customers may require semi-annual exams; and healthy customersmay require annual exams. These ideal visit periods must be built intoqueries specific to each condition.

The next step is to build a query for each condition that returns thelist of customers known to have that condition. In a management systemwhich contains diagnostic results, such as an electronic medical recordssystem, those diagnostic results will provide this information. Withoutdiagnostic results, one good solution is to query for customers who havepreviously been in for appointment types that indicate the condition.For example, a customer who has come in for a diabetic eye exam can beassumed to have diabetes, and a customer who has come in repeatedly fora pressure check might be assumed to have glaucoma. Appointment notescan also be parsed for keywords such as “diabetic” or “glaucoma”although this method may confuse screenings with regular care visits,which could lead to unnecessarily contacting customers who were screenedfor, but not diagnosed with, a particular disease such as glaucoma.

Finally, this query must be modified to exclude customers who meet anyof the following conditions:

1. The customer is not yet due for another visit (the last visit forthis condition was within the accepted period for regular visits).

2. The customer is already scheduled for a visit for this condition inthe future.

3. The customer is set up to receive a recall notice for a visit forthis condition.

4. The customer is deceased or otherwise inactive.

Sorting Customers Based on Expected Appointment Value

In order to provide the best return on outbound calling time, customerscan be sorted based on expected appointment value. Expected appointmentvalue is the amount of revenue expected from a given appointment, basedon customer and appointment attributes contained in the managementsystem. The following sections describe how to calculate expectedappointment value using information such as payor class, provider,appointment type and attendance history. These attributes can either beused individually or combined to calculate expected appointment value.

Sorting Customers Based on Average Billings Per Visit

In order to sort customers based on how well they pay, it is necessaryto calculate the average value of a visit according to some identifyingattribute, such as the payor class of a customer. Management systemswill usually have a table which identifies the payor for each customer,and another table that identifies the payor class that each payorbelongs to, which provides broad categories of insurance types, such asMedicare, preferred provider, Medicaid, and so on. These tables must bejoined in order to assign each customer to a payor class. If no payorclass table exists, then the individual payors may be used instead.

Because multiple items may be billed per visit, it is necessary tocreate a table of total billings per visit before calculating theaverage billings per visit. For example, a single visit may result inseparate billings for diagnostic tests, physician fees and facilityfees. These must be summed to calculate the total billings per visit.Calculate the total billings per visit by aggregating billings based ona common visit code or activity date for each customer, and join theresults with the payor class table, creating a table of <payor class(column 140), total billings per visit (column 142)> pairs. FIG. 2 is anexemplary table of total billings per visit by payor class.

Next, calculate the average billings per visit, grouping by payor class,in order to determine the average billings per visit for each payorclass. FIG. 3 is an exemplary table showing the average billings pervisit, by payor class. The payor classes are shown in column 150 and theaverage billing for each respective payor class is shown is column 152.

Finally, join the resulting table with the list of recall due customers,and sort descending by the average billings per visit column. This willgive you a prioritized list of customers, such that the first customerscalled belong to payor classes which pay more per visit, on average,than other payor classes.

Sorting Customers Based on Appointment Type or Provider

A more accurate estimate of appointment value can be obtained byconsidering appointment type and provider in addition to payor, whensorting customers. To do this, follow the same procedure as above, usingcombinations of attributes to build average billings per visit. Insteadof simply grouping by payor when calculating total and average billingsper visit, group them by payor, provider and appointment type. Sortdescending by average billings per visit, and use the resulting order ofpayor, provider and appointment type combinations to sort customersbefore presenting customers for contact.

For example, if private-paying customers seeing Dr. Aikes for cataractsurgery pay more on average than Medicaid customers seeing Dr. Paynesfor new glasses, then private-paying customers who are due back to seeDr. Aikes for cataract surgery would be presented for contact beforeMedicaid customers due back to see Dr. Paynes for new glasses.

This same scheme can be used to combine any number of attributes, aslong as there is adequate data in the system to calculate meaningfulaverage visit values. If there is insufficient data, select fewerattributes to sort by.

Converting Average Billings Per Visit to Expected Visit Value Based onAttendance History

The average billings per visit can be converted to expected visit valuebased on the customer's attendance history, in order to give preferenceto customers who show up consistently for appointments. Given adequateattendance history, this will provide a more accurate expectedappointment value.

First, calculate the percentage of appointments attended for eachcustomer without late cancellation or failure to show up for theappointment. To do this, total up the number of appointments made foreach customer recorded in the management system, including appointmentswhich were subsequently canceled or rescheduled. Calculate the number ofslots consumed by each customer by subtracting the number ofappointments which were canceled or rescheduled with adequate notice(for example, at least 24 hours) to fill these slots with othercustomers. Next, calculate the number of slots wasted by adding up thenumber of times each customer failed to show for an appointment orcancelled or rescheduled without giving adequate notice to fill the slotwith another customer (use the same 24 hour threshold as used tocalculate the number of slots consumed but calculate reschedules andcancellations with less than 24 hours notice). Subtract the number ofwasted slots from the total number of slots consumed, and divide theresult by the total number of slots consumed to provide the percentageattendance value for each customer. This average attendance value can beused alone, as with the average billings per visit column, by sortingcustomers in descending order based on their attendance. Alternatively,it can be multiplied by the average billings per visit column, to weightthe billings per visit value prior to its use to prioritize contacts.

For example, assume a particular customer has scheduled a total of sevenappointments during his history with the clinic. Three of these werecanceled or rescheduled at least 24 hours in advance. Thus, the customerhas consumed four appointment slots. Of these, one was canceled twohours prior to the appointment, but the customer has never failed toshow up for an appointment without first canceling. Hence, of the fourappointments consumed, one was wasted. The percentage attendance valuefor this customer is three (the number of slots consumed minus thenumber wasted) divided by four (the number consumed), or 75%.

In order to avoid giving too great weight to short attendance histories,it may be desirable to set some minimum number of slots consumed (suchas 3) below which customers are simply assigned the average attendancehistory value for all customers as a group, rather than their own.

Filtering the List Based on Specific Criteria

Customers can also be filtered by customer or appointment attributes, inorder to focus on filling specific providers' schedules, specificprovider-location combinations, specific locations, appointment types,and so on. To filter based on office preferences, present the user alist of attribute values, such as providers or locations, and allow themto select those to include or exclude, and then filter the customer listaccordingly.

One particularly valuable form of filtering is to filter by provider,based on the number of appointment slots about to expire unused for eachprovider, so that outbound calling reduces the number of wasted slots.To do this, count the number of free slots within some brief period inthe future, such as three days. Sort customers such that those customerswho are due to see providers with the most empty slots are presentedfirst. Alternatively, in order to focus outbound calling exclusively onfilling slots that would otherwise expire unused in a very busy office,filter the customer list so that only customers who are due to see aprovider with free slots in the next three days are presented forcontact.

Prompting a Scheduler to Personally Contact a Due Customer to Attempt toSchedule the Appointment

A customer is presented to the scheduler, or optionally, a list isprovided from which to select a customer. FIG. 4 is an exemplary programwhich prompts the scheduler to call the customer for an appointment.This program (in window 160) presents (in field 162) customer contactinformation, such as the customer name, phone number, and a uniquecustomer identification number that can be used to look up the customerin the management system. It also presents information about the dueappointment (in field 164), such as the purpose and due date, and thedate of the last visit. Finally, it provides a set of options to recordthe result (in field 166) of the personal contact, such as appointmentmade, appointment declined, message left, no answer, etc. After thescheduler calls the due customer, she chooses the appropriate result,makes any comments appropriate to the call, and presses the Next buttonto record these results and automatically record a timestamp. Thecontact system then presents the next due customer to be contacted.

The following is the specific logic required to correctly present datato one or more schedulers via this program:

-   -   In the contact program, query the contact system database for        the next customer to contact. For convenience, a query may        provide a list of customers which can be displayed to allow the        scheduler to choose whom to contact. When a customer is selected        (either automatically or via user selection):    -   1. If any of the following are true, abort contact and query for        next customer:        -   a. customer is already currently being contacted by another            scheduler.        -   b. customer has scheduled an appointment since a message was            left in a prior contact attempt. If so, update contact            result to “appointment made after message left” (FIG. 5) in            contact system database.        -   c. customer has scheduled an appointment without a message            left in any prior contact attempt. If so, update contact            result to “appointment already scheduled” (FIG. 5) in            contact system database.        -   d. customer has invalid contact information. If so, update            contact result to “invalid contact info” (FIG. 5) in contact            system database. Optionally, query the internet for possible            updated contact information.    -   2. Mark customer as currently being contacted in contact system        database (to prevent redundant contacts when multiple schedulers        are working simultaneously).    -   3. Display customer's contact and due appointment information        Personally Contacting the Customer to Attempt to Schedule the        Appointment

Using the customer contact information provided by the program describedabove, the scheduler attempts to contact the customer and schedule anappointment. If the customer cannot be contacted, the scheduler mayleave a message requesting a return call.

Alternatively, phone software may be used which leaves a message when nohuman is contacted, and turns the call over to a scheduler when thecustomer answers.

Recording the Results of the Contact

After the scheduler has attempted to contact the customer, the schedulerindicates the result of the contact, such as whether an appointment wasmade, a message was left, the appointment was declined, and so on. Thisinformation is stored into the contact system database, and the“currently being contacted” flag is updated. FIG. 7 is a list of fieldsin the contact system database's contactDetails table, which containsthe details of each attempted contact. There is a one-to-manyrelationship between the contactSummary table and the contactDetailstable.

Responding to Incorrect Phone Numbers

When the user indicates the contact result was an incorrect phonenumber, the contact system can use a web service, such as anywho.com ordexonline.com, to look up phone numbers for matching customer names inthe geographical area, and present these to the user, so the user cantry these alternate numbers and correct the incorrect number in thesystem. Because phone listings don't include all the names in a family,this lookup should include the name of the customer and the name of theperson who is responsible to pay the bill, as listed in the managementdatabase.

Automatically Recording the Time and Date of Contact

When the scheduler indicates the contact result, the time and date ofcontact are also automatically recorded into the contact systemdatabase. Until a sufficient time has passed to warrant another callaccording to the rules in FIG. 5, this customer will not be presented toschedulers for another contact.

Integrating the Contact System and the Management System

Instead of separating the contact system and the management system intotwo separate programs, each with its own database, the two systems canalso be combined, with the contact system built into the managementsystem as a feature of that system. In this case, the same database canbe used to store the contact system contact results and history, as wellas the customer appointment information and other management systemdata.

SUMMARY

It is not always possible or desirable to schedule return appointmentswith customers as they leave. Instead, customers may be reminded to callfor an appointment when the time approaches for them to return. Often,customers fail to heed these reminders, and so a system is requiredwhich supports contacting these customers after they have failed torespond to requests to call. In addition, customers who are due for anappointment according to accepted standards of care but who have notscheduled an appointment need to be identified and contacted in order toschedule appointments. The present invention offers the supportnecessary to efficiently identify and contact these customers, so thatthey can be scheduled for an appointment. By contacting these customers,professionals can fill empty slots in their schedules, thus improvingrevenues and profits, while simultaneously offering a higher level ofservice to customers.

While the foregoing is a detailed description of the preferredembodiment of the invention, there are many alternative embodiments ofthe invention that would occur to those skilled in the art and which arewithin the scope of the present invention. Accordingly, the presentinvention is to be determined by the following claims.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method for scheduling an appointment fora customer in an office having one or more persons tasked withscheduling appointments for the office in a computer-implemented officemanagement system, the computer-implemented office management systemdescribing each customer and appointment according to one or moreattributes which influence profitability or office preferences andstoring information in an office management system electronic database,comprising the steps of: a) querying by a contact management programexecuting on a computer the office management system electronic databaseto determine a first class of customers whose appointments have not beenscheduled despite reminding the customer at least once to schedule theappointment, b) sorting the first class of customers according to anexpected appointment value, so that customers whose appointments have ahigher expected appointment value are presented for contact beforecustomers whose appointments have a lower expected appointment value,wherein the expected appointment value comprises an amount of revenueexpected from the appointment that is to be scheduled, wherein theamount of revenue expected from the appointment to be scheduled is basedon an average billings per visit of each customer in the first class ofcustomers c) displaying contact information associated with a customerbelonging to the first class of customers on a computer screen to promptone or more persons to personally contact the named customer to schedulethe appointment for the customer, wherein the expected appointment valueassociated with the customer being displayed to the one or more personsis higher than the expected appointment value of customers in the firstclass of customers that have not been displayed, d) personallycontacting the customer to schedule the appointment, the personalcontact being made by at least one of the one or more persons, e) notingthe results of the contact in an electronic database, and f) noting thetime of step d).
 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein step b)further consists of determining the average billings per visit based onthe type of insurance or payment claims to which customer belongs. 3.The method according to claim 2, wherein step d) further comprises: inresponse to the contact result indicating an incorrect phone number,looking up and presenting a list of phone numbers for the customer to aperson making the personal contact.
 4. The method according to claim 1,wherein step d) further comprises: in response to the contact resultindicating an incorrect phone number, looking up and presenting a listof phone numbers for the customer to a person making the personalcontact.
 5. The method according to claim 1, where step b) furtherconsists of sorting the first class of customers by at least one of aprovider or location based on which of the at least one provider orlocation has the lightest schedule.
 6. The method according to claim 5,wherein step b) further comprises: in response to the contact resultindicated an incorrect phone number, looking up and presenting a list ofphone numbers for the customer to a person making the personal contact.7. The method according to claim 1, where step b) further consists ofsorting the first class of customers based on the appointment type, sothat specific slots dedicated to specific appointment types can befilled.
 8. The method according to claim 1, where step b) furtherconsists of sorting the first class of customers based on theappointment type, so that appointment types which yield the highestaverage revenue are scheduled first.
 9. A method for scheduling anappointment for a customer in an office having one or more personstasked with scheduling appointments for the office in acomputer-implemented office management system, the computer-implementedoffice management system describing each customer and appointmentaccording to one or more attributes which influence profitability oroffice preferences and including an office management system electronicdatabase, comprising the steps of: a) querying by a contact managementcomputer program executing on a computer the office management systemelectronic database to determine a first class of customers who are dueback for a visit according to accepted standards of care or officepolicies, but have not been scheduled for an appointment, b) sorting thefirst class of customers according to an expected appointment value, sothat all customers whose appointments have a higher expected appointmentvalue are presented for contact before customers whose appointments havea lower than expected appointment value, wherein the expectedappointment value comprises an amount of revenue expected from theappointment to be scheduled, wherein the amount of the revenue expectedfrom the appointment to be scheduled is based on an average billings pervisit of each of the customers, c) displaying contact informationassociated with a customer belonging to the first class of customers ona computer screen to prompt one or more persons to personally contactnamed customer belonging to the first class of customers to schedule theappointment for the customer, wherein the expected appointment valueassociated with the customer being displayed to the one or more personsis higher than the expected appointment value of customers in the firstclass of customers that have not been displayed, d) personallycontacting the customer to schedule the appointment, the personalcontact being made by at least one of the one or more persons, e) notingthe results of the contact in an electronic database, and f) noting thetime of step d).
 10. The method according to claim 9, wherein step b)further consists of determining the average billings per visit based onthe type of insurance or payment class to which the customer belongs.11. The method according to claim 9, where step b) further consists ofsorting the first class of customers by at least one of a provider orlocation based on which of the at least one provider or location has thelightest schedule.
 12. The method according to claim 9, where step b)further consists of sorting the first class of customers based on anappointment type, so that specific slots dedicated to specificappointment types can be filled.
 13. The method according to claim 9,where step b) further consists of sorting the first class of customersbased on an appointment type, so that appointment types which yield thehighest average revenue are scheduled first.
 14. The method according toclaim 9, wherein the office is an office selected from the class ofoffices including a medical office, a dental office, and a law office.15. An apparatus for scheduling an appointment for a customer in anoffice having one or more persons tasked with scheduling appointmentsfor the office in an office management system, the office managementsystem describing each customer and appointment according to one or moreattributes which influence profitability or office preferences,comprising: a) a computer programmed to query the office managementsystem to determine a first class of customers whose appointments havenot been scheduled despite reminding the customer at least once toschedule the appointment, b) a computer programmed to sort the firstclass of customers according to an expected appointment value, so thatcustomers whose appointments have a higher expected appointment valueare presented for contact before customers whose appointments have alower expected appointment value, wherein the expected appointment valuecomprises an amount of revenue expected from the appointment that is tobe scheduled, wherein the amount of revenue expected from theappointment to be scheduled is based on an average billings per visit ofeach of the customers in the first class of customers, c) a computerprogrammed to prompt one or more persons to personally contact acustomer belonging to the first class of customers to schedule theappointment for the customer, wherein the expected appointment valueassociated with the customer to be personally contacted is higher thanthe expected appointment value of customers in the first class ofcustomers that have not been displayed, and d) a computer programmed torecord the results and time of the contact.
 16. The apparatus accordingto claim 15, wherein the computer programmed to sort the first class ofcustomers determines the average billings per visit based on the type ofinsurance pr payment class to which the customer belongs.
 17. Theapparatus according to claim 15, where the computer programmed to sortthe first class of customers is further programmed to sort the firstclass of customers based on an appointment type, so that specific slotsdedicated to specific appointment types can be filled.
 18. The apparatusaccording to claim 15, where the computer programmed to sort the firstclass of customers is further programmed to sort the first class ofcustomers by at least one of a provider or location based on which ofthe at least one provider or location has the lightest schedule.
 19. Theapparatus according to claim 15, where the computer programmed to sortthe first class of customers is further programmed to sort the firstclass of customers based on an appointment type, so that appointmenttypes which yield the highest average revenue are scheduled first. 20.An apparatus for scheduling an appointment for a customer in an officehaving one or more persons tasked with scheduling appointments for theoffice in an office management system, the office management systemdescribing each customer and appointment according to one or moreattributes which influence profitability or office preferences,comprising: a) a computer programmed to query the office managementsystem to determine a first class of customers who are due back for avisit according to accepted standards of care or office policies, buthave not been scheduled for an appointment, b) the computer programmedto sort the first class of customers according to an expectedappointment value, so that customers whose appointments have a higherexpected appointment value are presented for contact before customerswhose appointments have a lower expected appointment value, wherein theexpected appointment value comprises an amount of revenue expected fromthe appointment that is to be scheduled, wherein the amount of revenueexpected from the appointment to be scheduled is based on an averagebillings per visit of each of the customers in the first class ofcustomers c) the computer programmed to prompt one or more persons topersonally contact a customer belonging to the first class of customersto schedule the appointment for the customer, wherein the expectedappointment value associated with the customer to be personallycontacted is higher than the expected appointment value of customers inthe first class of customers that have not been displayed, and d) thecomputer programmed to record the results and time of the contact. 21.The apparatus according to claim 19, wherein the computer programmed tosort the first class of customers further determines the averagebillings per visit based on the type of insurance or payment class towhich the customer belongs.
 22. The apparatus according to claim 20,where the computer programmed to sort the first class of customersfurther sorts the first class of customers by at least one of a provideror location based on which of the at least one provider or location hasthe lightest schedule.
 23. The apparatus according to claim 20, wherethe computer programmed to sort the first class of customers furthersorts the first class of customers based on an appointment type, so thatspecific slots dedicated to specific appointment types can be filled.24. The apparatus according to claim 20, where the computer programmedto sort the first class of customers further sorts or filters the firstclass of customers based on appointment type, so that appointment typeswhich yield the highest average revenue are scheduled first.
 25. Themethod according to claim 1, wherein the office is an office selectedfrom a class of offices including a medical office, a dental office, anda law office.
 26. The method according to claim 15, wherein the officeis an office selected from a class of offices including a medicaloffice, a dental office, and a law office.
 27. The method according toclaim 20, wherein the office is an office selected from a class ofoffices including a medical office, a dental office, and a law office.